Four Inches of Snow?

Sam and Sariah were sorely disappointed.

They Prayed It

Remember way back when I mentioned that Sam and Sariah were praying for snow. Guess what we are preparing for now: Snowpocalypse 2017. So it's 3-4 inches of snow coming. Supposedly. I'll believe it when I see it. The thing is that this is the south. 3-4 inches of snow means that the governor will declare a state of emergency tomorrow. The kids have a half day of school. Oh the joy. I'll post pictures.

In the mean time, Sam lost another tooth, and Madeline is running a fever. Christmas is about a quarter of the way put away...with the other 75% spread willy-nilly throughout the house, because I'm that awesome.

Good times. ;)

Brrrrr!

My, how things have changed.  It's cold here. I don't think we've gotten below freezing yet, and I am cold.  Lizzi wore flip flops to school today while her classmates were bundled up like little Eskimos.  This afternoon, the wind was blowing (by Oklahoma standards, a gentle breeze).  Sam didn't know what to do with it; he found it very disturbing, and kept squinting at it and yelling at it.  I didn't even notice it, because it didn't take my breath away.  Many have asked if I miss real winter weather.  No.  No way.  Meanwhile, Bob's new fireplace is keeping us toasty warm during this bout of cold weather.  I love Georgia.

Georgia

So, at last we have internet.  I love my little iPhone, but I'm a full keyboard kinda girl, I guess.

Plus, my beloved little iPhone doesn't work so well out this way.  Apparently, AT&T is NOT the wireless carrier of choice, and for good reason, too.  Oh dear, I might have to get me a new, bigger, badder, more beloved little iPhone at a different carrier.  I am aghast at the possibility, I assure you.

Meanwhile, Georgia is treating us well.  On the day we left Oklahoma, the thermometer in my car read 113F.  What the heck!!  It was dryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy and hooooooooooooooot.  My OK friends will probably wish to flay me for saying this, but when we pulled into our new area on Thursday at 3 in the afternoon, my car read 74F, and it was pouring down buckets of rain.  People here keep asking me how I feel about the heat, but I think we shouldn't have packed our sweaters on the moving van.  But for my OK friends, the day after it poured, it was 97F, and like about a million percent humidity.  Hot is hot, but there is something to be said for dry heat ... except when it causes fires which I hear have been pretty terrible, but I digress, I think....

And getting back to the moving van.  It was supposed to be here on Friday.  And I was supposed to have furniture in my snug little apartment today.  But alas, as of this morning, the truck was still in Little Rock.  Little Rock?!  So, we are still sleeping on air mattresses and sitting on the floor.

But what I miss most of all is my washer and dryer.  They were supposed to be here today, remember.  I've had to do laundry at the laundromat.  Haven't had to do that in about 12 years.  Ugh, ugh, ugh.  Haven't had to climb stairs with all my groceries in about that long either ... fortunately, we are actually climbing down the stairs so it doesn't seem nearly so horrible.  And maybe I'll lose a few pounds (hahahahahaha).

Church tomorrow.  I am so looking forward to having friends again.  I must confess I have been a little lonely.  I had hoped to be able to call all my favorite people when I was feeling blue, but alas, my wireless carrier is flaky.  Must remedy that soon.

Post comments if you love me.  Because I seriously miss all you guys.  :(

Snowmageddon 2011

Or, as Bob prefers to call it, The Never-Ending Saturday.

It's been sleeting/blizzarding/snowstorming/snowing/icing since Monday evening.  This is the 4th day in a row that the kids have been out of school.  I don't even want to hazard a guess as to how the school district will make up these days.  It was too cold for the kids to have much fun.

It's snowing again today.  Nice fat, white, fluffy flakes.  It's gorgeous!  You can't even tell that Bob and the kids shoveled the driveway yesterday.

Too bad we're ready for some good spring weather again.

Like our snow shovel?  It was our Christmas present.  A nice metal one, as opposed to plastic, which doesn't always work so well when you are dealing with ((re)re)melted snow & ice.

The forecast for the weekend?  A nice warm day in the 30s tomorrow.  Just warm enough to melt some of the snow.  And then it will ice back up over night, and then guess what?  More snow.  I'm starting to think we've been transplanted.....

What We've Been Up to

Well, there was the grass fire in the field across the street.  That's enough to make you assess your emergency preparedness and count your many blessings.  No damage to our property. And I'm so grateful for the fire department who kept the fire at bay, stayed overnight SEVERAL nights to make sure everything burned out, and kept all the cars out of our neighborhood during the worst of it.

The remaining stench was especially disappointing in light of the fact that the grass fire was followed by 3 days of FABULOUS weather.  It was WARM, and it was the kind of weather that makes you throw your windows open and anticipate the deliciousness of spring.  Except that we couldn't throw our windows open because of the all-permeating (over)burnt cedar smell of fall.  Bummer.

And now: Snowmageddon.  Except that, IMHO (in my humble opinion, for the technologically illiterate), the blizzard in 2009 was much worthier of the title.  Of course, I was sound and snugly asleep last night when the worst of it blew in.  But still.  It's snow.  And it's freakin' cold.  But we've done that before.  And probably will again.

Meanwhile, my neighbor's daughter pointed out that our little corner of the world has recently been a real magnet for weather/earth related disasters.  Since we moved into this house, we've experienced blizzards, a tornado, an earthquake, fire (not to mention the ice storm right before we moved)....  She started wondering what's next and even made a suggestion, but really, I must say I decline to participate in that sort of self-punishing, self-fulfilling prophecy, jinxing type behavior.  I can't think about it.  My mental health might be at stake.

BUT HERE'S THE BEST PART OF THE WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO LATELY: Sariah's pretty purple glasses have been located.  In Caleb's backpack.  Why didn't I think to look there?!  Still, even this morning I find myself continuing to look around my house imagining all the little hidey-holes a pair of glasses could be hunkered down in (inside the piano? but alas I've already looked there ... oh wait! under the china hutch? but alas I looked there, too ... noooooo, I'm not really going to consider going through the hideously messy craft drawers in the closet!).  You get the picture.  So, I'm ready to dance a jig over finding the long-lost, much missed specs.  Woohoo!

An Oklahoma Story

Everyone knows by now that we survived the May 10 tornadoes in Oklahoma.  The Norman tornado(es) were much too close for comfort.  We only had a fence panel knocked down, and we put it back up within an hour (the dogs, unfortunately for Bob, were not blown away by the twister).  Our kids were completely terrorized, but I was grateful for the last 14 married years with my husband.  He communicated a lifetime's worth of information when he called my name on May 10--I knew to pick up my 3-year-old out of her bath and take her and all of the children to our safe spot immediately.  And all he said was, "Tracy!"  It was the first tornado he'd seen in 38 years of living in Oklahoma.  Poor Caleb saw it as well.  Hopefully, this will be their last sighting for a long, long time!

In the mean time, some pictures from around our side of town from May 10 and May 11.  Can I just say again, how completely lucky and blessed we feel to come out of this intact?!?!

Comfy-Cozy

Today's Writing Prompt: Storm

Explain how you feel during a rain or snow storm.


I spent most of my younger years in super sunny southern climes.  The Sonoran Desert taught me to appreciate rain, and Dallas taught me to appreciate a proper winter storm (as opposed to an ice storm).

I love great big downpours of rain.  Although I hated them when I was little, and I still flinch when there are thunder and lightening, electrical storms still make me feel high (or as high as someone who's never been drugged-out high can feel, anyway).

Ice, snow, or rain, I love being inside, comfy-cozy, while a storm rages outside, or softly falls and blankets the world.

But the best part is still when the sun comes out the next morning, and elicits from me a great big stretch and a smile.  That's when I feel warm inside.

Thunder! Lightening!

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Today's Writing Prompt: Scared

Write about something that scared you as a child.


This is ironically appropriate tonight, given that a thunderstorm has just rolled into Norman.

As a child, I was terrified of lightening and thunder. I grew up in Tucson, and my mid-August birthday was during "monsoon season." It stormed a lot during that time of year. Lightening often streaked earthward in crazy displays of light, and was almost always followed by loud cracks! of thunder. I could never decide whether I hated the thunder more, because it was loud and sudden, or the lightening more, because it always preceded the crashes of thunder.

I hid under my bed, trembling, on occasion during the storms. I could sit, absolutely paralyzed by fear, in our darkened living room for hours at a time. When the thunder came in the middle of the night, I could find no voice to call my mother, but remained scrunched up under my sheets waiting for the cacophony to pass. And I remember making my mother nuts with my anxieties (oh dear! what goes around certainly comes around!).

How interesting that I can recall my Grandma Scarbrough, my mother's mother, and all the attempts she made to lessen my fear. My small son, Caleb, lays on the couch asleep as I write. He couldn't bring himself to sleep in his own bed when the wind began to blow. My mother, Pat, and my dear friend, Lorna, also a grandmother, spent last week trying to convince Caleb of all the reasons he need not be afraid of storms. Granted, living in Tornado Alley, instead of the Sonoran Desert, gives rise to even more fear than mere thunder and lightening. I suppose a tornado is indeed a scary thing. At 8, the same age as Caleb, I was scared silly of the little dust devils we got in Arizona, small swirling cyclones of dust and dirt, and especially petrifying to me when they picked up thorny tumbleweeds. As I think about it, those dust devils were akin to tiny tornadoes. No wonder my little son is so scared!

However, I can suddenly recall with clarity that it was my own grandmother, and not my mother, who tried most to convince me of the very same things. And all to no avail! Describing thunder as the angels moving their furniture was a cute idea, but didn't soothe my fears. Neither did counting the seconds between lightening strikes and the thunder's boom. I wasn't afraid of the damage the lightening could do; I was afraid of the unpredictable and resonating boom. Maybe it would have been more helpful for me to know how many seconds to count before the boom came?

Over time, and in minute increments, I simply outgrew my fear. Or, rather, I coped with it better.

Thunder and lightening here in Norman, Oklahoma, are a little different. Usually, the thunder rolls, true to Garth Brooks. The lightening rolls, too. It seems far less likely for you to see lightening strike straight downward. Usually what I see is the lightening reflecting in rippling patches across the clouds in the sky as a front presses forward. I love that. It's gorgeous. And I love the soul-satisfying rumbling of the thunder.

But.... We still get big cracks of thunder from time to time. And if I'm in bed with my husband, I curl up as close to him as I can, and I squeeze my eyes shut, and I cover my ears.

I guess I haven't really outgrown it after all.